since i can't yet embed images here, i posted this blog entry on tribe:

http://people.tribe.net/bluewings/blog/ee37c072-3102-47e1-91d5-87a5dd0675d3  

for my contribution to the zaadz collaborative movie review:

http://pods.zaadz.com/bulletinboard/discussions/view/13604  

there is an interesting thread in the kosmic blogging pod in response to the following statement by Andrew Cohen:

 ”Unconditional love has no value whatsoever if you're interested in the evolution of consciousness. I know that this ideal is very popular in the postmodern spiritual marketplace. But let's just think for a moment about what the phrase implies. It means “I'll love you absolutely and forever, no matter what you do and no matter what you have ever done—whether you are the greatest saint or the worst sinner that the universe has ever produced.” That's love without any conditions whatsoever. But what use is a love like that? The only individual who wants or needs to be loved unconditionally is a sinner who has absolutely no intention of repenting! An individual who truly intends to change and transform doesn't need or even want love without conditions. If you have stopped playing games and have finally chosen to take yourself and the precious life you are living seriously for the right reasons, you take responsibility for the evolution of consciousness at the deepest and highest level. You make the heroic effort to cultivate soul-strength, which is the capacity for integrity, transparency, and most important of all, authenticity. Because you aspire to evolve morally, you just don't need to be loved unconditionally. In fact, you have awakened to a kind of love that is highly conditional, a love that demands nothing less than everything from each and every one of us. If you want the universe to evolve through you, the last thing that you need is to be loved without conditions.” - A.Cohen

link to the thread:
http://pods.zaadz.com/kosmicblogging/discussions/view/13242  

there are many thoughtful responses on the thread. below is my response:

I am in agreement with the dissenters here.

Think about this: breath. Feel it, right now. Breath, falling in, falling out. It excludes no one. Ever. When you most violated your integrity – when you did or felt or were the one thing you are most ashamed of in your life – did breath abandon you? Did it stop loving you? Breath made no distinction between you and Hitler. (I am NOT saying therefore we should make no distinctions. I'll come back to this.) It sounds perhaps silly to say the breath loves you, because this is not what we think love is. We think it is a warm feeling or a sweetness or an experience. But those experiences and feelings are not all there is to love, they merely point us to love, they remind us of essence, and that is why they feel so good. Because for a moment at least you are in alignment with who you most deeply are.

I think Cohen's confused, though I believe Aeryck is right to point out that Cohen seems to be specifically talking about the desire or need to BE the object of unconditional love, rather than the desire or need TO love unconditionally, or to be the subject of love without conditions. But I still think Cohen’s confused.

Here's why…
he said:

 “An individual who truly intends to change and transform doesn't need or even want love without conditions.”

Yes and no. I think yes because such an individual IS love without conditions. But I think no because just because one truly intends to change and transform doesn't mean that one has reached a level of realization in which one's identity is grounded in ISness, which is love. Aspiration announces itself at all levels of development, it is the inherent force of Eros, which propels evolution and growth. But until an individual is firmly established in a stage of consciousness that centers in the feeling state of being love, in the conscious identity with ISness or loveness, Spirit, God, Light, whatever it is that you call it… until then the individual will long to BE loved unconditionally. That is how we learn who we really are. By being mirrored. And those who can witness us through the eyes of unconditional love see us the most accurately. To be seen like that is to be recognized for who you really are, and anyone who has experienced it knows it is a profoundly healing and quickening and empowering experience. Once you really know who you are, you no longer need to be mirrored in this way because EVERYTHING you see reflects your true nature back to you, EVERYTHING you see is love.

“If you have stopped playing games and have finally chosen to take yourself and the precious life you are living seriously for the right reasons, you take responsibility for the evolution of consciousness at the deepest and highest level. You make the heroic effort to cultivate soul-strength, which is the capacity for integrity, transparency, and most important of all, authenticity.”

I think that sometimes the highest expression of that responsibility IS to seek unconditional love.

And sometimes not:  

Cohen is speaking of a certain narcissistic tendency that exists when people get stuck in wanting that fix of love for themselves, from someone else, someone other, and they do not want to grow into responsibility for BEING that love, which would require eventually giving up the yummy feelings of getting it from others, giving up the victimhood, and the excuse for not fully embodying your power, vulnerability, humanity, and divinity. People do get stuck there, not wanting to grow beyond it, demanding their right to be unconditionally loved, meaning, unconditionally excused… “You're wrong in saying I should grow, behave differently, whatever… because I deserve to be loved exactly as I am, and how dare you judge me!” That is a refusal to grow up and take responsibility for one's own integrity, actions, impact in the world, because it is a refusal to take responsibility for BEING love. But sometimes people will hide in that defensive, entitled-to-love posture because they've NEVER really experienced absolute unconditional love. They are achingly, chronically alienated from their own essential nature, awaiting an encounter with an undistorted mirror so they might finally know themselves. And the most heroic, transparent, authentic thing they could possibly do is to admit their need to genuinely experience a human expression of unconditional love and care.

I  believe that it's common in some circles to disparage the care and nurturance aspect of love and compassion, (and conversely, among the mean greens, to disparage tough love.) Andrew Cohen may be one of those teachers who uses a call to self-responsibility and a damnfine critical analysis of narcissism to hide his own deficient capacities for caring and nurturing response-ability, his own failure to feel genuine loving kindness and concern. But he also may simply be issuing a call-to-arms specifically for those whose edge is now to move beyond their i-need-unconditional-love-narcissism. He may or may not be skillful in expressing all aspects of love-in-action. I don’t know.

What I know is that nurturance is one form of true reflection, and unequivocal refusal to permit self-indulgence is another form of the same reflection. Feminine and Masculine compassion, if you like. What is called for in any given moment with any given individual requires wise and lucid discernment.

I believe we are called to be unconditionally loving because we are unconditional love. At some point that means no longer allowing yourself to require that love from another. But it also means honoring any genuine need you have to receive the true mirroring of unconditional love. If you know that parts of you remain curled up in a dark corner feeling unworthy, then the most authentic action you can take is to wisely, self-responsibly seek that love. Sometimes you need to receive it and feel it from “another” in order to know and embody the truth of it.

Re: (Un)conditional Love ?

Whoops. I forgot to elaborate on the Hitler thing.

As human beings who choose to be responsible with the gift of our lives, we damn well better make distinctions between Hitler and Mum Theresa. But we also have to recognize that actions do not = essence. Unconditional love, like breath, respects only essence. It flows everywhere because everything ultimately IS essence.

When we make distinctions what we are doing is evaluating how aligned a being or an actiuon is with essence, with truth goodness beauty… 

Alignment=unobstructed flow=love in action=skillful means=how I want to express my life force

Re: (Un)conditional Love ?

And yes, breath abandons you in death, but Who does it abandon?

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